Truth IS stranger than fiction-Marion Barry wants to legalize guns for 90 days

Truth IS stranger than fiction-Marion Barry wants to legalize guns for 90 days

This is a discussion on Truth IS stranger than fiction-Marion Barry wants to legalize guns for 90 days within the The Second Amendment & Gun Legislation Discussion forums, part of the Related Topics category; http://washingtontimes.com/metro/200...5722-3302r.htm
Barry aims for gun-ban hiatus
By Gary Emerling
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 7, 2007
D.C. Council member Marion Barry yesterday introduced legislation that would ...

Truth IS stranger than fiction-Marion Barry wants to legalize guns for 90 days

Barry aims for gun-ban hiatus
By Gary Emerling
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 7, 2007

D.C. Council member Marion Barry yesterday introduced legislation that would suspend the District's 30-year ban on handguns, providing gun owners a 90-day period to register weapons they would then be allowed to legally own.
"We are in the midst of a gun-violence epidemic," said Mr. Barry, Ward 8 Democrat. "We need to see gun violence as an emergency in the District of Columbia."
Mr. Barry's bill, which only applies to pistols, would allow D.C. residents with no criminal record to register guns for 90 days from the law's enactment. After the 90-day period, current gun restrictions would be reinstated.
Barry spokesman Keith Perry said the bill is "an acknowledgment that people do have guns" in the District and would help police better track weapons used in the commission of crimes.
The District has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation and restricts ownership of most guns that were not registered before 1977. Privately owned rifles and shotguns must be kept at home and stored unloaded, disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or a similar device.
Mr. Barry's proposal would increase the penalties for possessing an unregistered weapon in the District from a maximum of one year in prison and a $1,000 fine to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
A second offense could result in 30 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, according to the bill.
Mr. Barry, who was robbed at gunpoint in his Southeast apartment in January 2006, cited statistics that said police had confiscated 2,656 guns last year, with 51 percent of those weapons being seized east of the Anacostia River.
A recent Metropolitan Police Department report on homicides from 2001 to 2005 states that 901 of 1,126 homicide victims, or about 80 percent, were fatally shot.
Mr. Barry, who served four terms as D.C. mayor, also referenced the recent shooting deaths of D.C. teenagers Cynthia Gray and Taleshia Ford, both 17, in urging support for the measure.
"We all get outraged ... and we all go home," Mr. Barry said. "Nothing is done to get the guns off the streets of Washington, D.C."
Mr. Barry's bill was co-sponsored by council members Jim Graham, Ward 1 Democrat; Kwame Brown, at-large Democrat; and Tommy Wells, Ward 6 Democrat. It was referred to the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary.
Mr. Brown acknowledged that the bill "needs some working and flushing out" but that it was a proactive approach to taking guns off of city streets.
"To me, it's the end result," he said. "How do we get guns off the streets of the District of Columbia, get public input and find out how we can make the streets safer?"
Phil Mendelson, at-large Democrat and chairman of the public safety committee, said he had reservations about aspects of the bill. He said the 90-day period during which people who have owned illegal guns can register their weapons seems "counterproductive."
"The intent is right, to deal with gun violence," Mr. Mendelson said. "The amnesty thing, I think, goes against the need to reduce the number of guns in our city." He said the bill would likely be considered during the course of a larger hearing on gun violence.
Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said yesterday the organization was not sufficiently familiar with Mr. Barry's bill to give an opinion on it but that the measure could be a tough sell in the District.
"It seems like a real uphill struggle for Mr. Barry to get a lot of broad support for something like this," Mr. Hamm said. "Washington, D.C., is suffering from a lot of gun violence lately and to say, 'Let's bring more guns into the equation as a solution,' doesn't sound like it makes a great deal of sense."
Chris W. Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, also said Mr. Barry's proposal was a surprise and that the organization would study the bill.
"Obviously, we support efforts to allow law-abiding residents of the District to own firearms," Mr. Cox said. "And we will continue in those efforts."
Congressional attempts to repeal the District's gun ban in recent years have been criticized as attacks on the District's right to home rule.
In 2004, the House of Representatives voted in favor of repealing the city's restrictions on gun ownership and registration, even though the measure was opposed by the District's mayor, 13 council members, the police chief and the city's congressional delegate. The bill was not brought to a vote in the Senate.
A federal appeals court heard arguments in December about whether the District's decision to prohibit residents from owning guns is a violation of the Second Amendment. That decision is pending. A U.S. District judge rejected the argument, brought by six D.C. residents, in 2005.

'Barry spokesman Keith Perry said the bill is "an acknowledgment that people do have guns" in the District and would help police better track weapons used in the commission of crimes.'

It's a change of tactics. It would, indeed, provide for better tracking of firearms.

Glad to see the concept of allowing firearms access to individuals getting some play. It's at least a tacit agreement that the current methods are an absolute and utter failure. I suppose that's something.

"fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." [Warren v. District of Columbia,(D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981)]
If I have to explain it, you wouldn't understand

"He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good deal . . . and was a fairly clever fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life. The cause of this apparently was that at the bottom of his heart he knew all the time (or thought he knew) that he was in reality not a man, but a wolf of the Steppes."

A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands - love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper - his hands remember the rifle.

I trust Marion Barry about as far as I can throw him. You can bet he isn't doing this in the intrest of the gun owners. Once regestered he can turn around and grab the guns and we could do nothing to stop him. He has been denying the people of DC their Second Amendment rights for 30 years so why the change of heart now. Barry go smoke some more crack.

this just seems to me like a plan to find out exactly how many guns are in the city.. well at least the good people's guns. Register them.. we want you to legally own them... until we come get them, now that we know where they are.

I don't get it... if you support good people owning their handguns, then why on earth do you only give them 90 days to register them? Why can't someone next year go buy a handgun and legally own it?

Crackhead gonna let everyone register for 90 days. Then at dawn of day 91, gonna take every registered gun and what ever others they can find. Politicians.

They let the crackhead get re-elected, so don't they deserve whatever crackhead scheme he thrusts upon them?

When I first read the headline, I thought, "OMG, they're going to do a dry run to see what the demand for guns among the good citizens of D.C. is like! They're actually going to make a short window during which it will be legal to obtain and own guns in D.C. again!"

Of course, that's not what this is about. It's about an expectation that the criminals in D.C., who have the illegal, unregistered guns, are going to decide that it's a good idea to let the authorities know that they have them during a 90-day period when they won't be arrested for admitting to illegal gun possession.

This appears to have nothing to do with allowing citizens who would be gun owners to go out and buy and keep guns to defend themselves against crime.